Family of dismembered St. Clair Shores man asks for privacy

On the same day witnesses saw a white female in a sports utility vehicle dumping trash bags filled with dismembered body parts in St. Clair County, Donna Scrivo called a Detroit car donation program saying she wanted to get rid of an SUV -- as soon as possible.

It was the second vehicle she donated to the Mother Wattles Car Donation Program within three days, according to a program manager. A few days earlier, she had donated a Ford Focus to the program, said manager Rick Frazier.

“In my opinion, the Focus may have been the car her son drove and therefore she wanted it to disappear because he was quote-unquote missing,” Frazier said Wednesday. “She said she wanted it picked up right away.”

Donna Scrivo, 60, a former nurse, was charged Monday with disinterment and mutilation of a dead body, a 10-year felony, and removing a body without permission of a medical examiner, a misdemeanor that carries up to 1 year in prison.

Police and prosecutors say she is the woman witnesses saw dumping the trash bags of body parts last week in three rural areas of St. Clair County. The bags contained the remains of her son, 32-year-old Ramsay Scrivo of St. Clair Shores.

It’s not yet clear how 32-year-old Ramsay Scrivo died. The medical examiner’s office is waiting for toxicology test results before ruling on a cause of death.

St. Clair Shores police and the St. Clair County Sheriff’s office are conducting an ongoing joint investigation into the apparent murder of the son, who neighbors and court records say had emotional difficulties.

Earlier this week, a St. Clair Shores district court judge increased Donna Scrivo’s bond from $100,000 to $250,000 after learning she lied about her finances while asking for a court-appointed attorney.

She also was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ann Arbor after talking about harming herself while she was in the Macomb County Jail over the weekend.

Frazier said his records show a Donna Scrivo called the Mother Waddles program on Monday, Jan. 27 to donate the Focus. That’s the same day she filed a missing persons report about her son with the St. Clair Shores Police Department.

Three days later, on Thursday, Jan. 30, Scrivo again called Mother Waddles to donate a Chevy Trailblazer. Earlier that day, witnesses saw a white woman in a similar vehicle tossing trash bags out of the window.

“The eerie thing is, this was several hours after she allegedly disposed of the body parts,” said Frazier, a Rochester resident. “She told us to come get it ASAP.”

Both cars were registered to Scrivo. On the morning she was arrested, she had obtained the title for the Trailblazer, which had been in the name of her late husband, Daniel.

Investigators secured search warrants for the vehicles that were then impounded at Mother Waddles.

At Monday’s court hearing, St. Clair Shores Detective Margaret Eidt said blood and cleansing chemicals were found in the Trailblazer and in the Scrivo household.

In the search warrants, police said they were looking for evidence of saliva or blood that may have been in either vehicle as a “result of the intentional death of Ramsay David Scrivo,”

Meanwhile, in an email to area news organizations, a Scrivo family member requested privacy as the family comes to grips with the loss of Ramsay. The email indicated there will be private memorial service for Ramsay at a later date that will not be open to the public.

Ramsay Scrivo’s father, Daniel, died May 15, 2013, according to an obituary on the web page of Bagnasco & Calcaterra Funeral Home in St. Clair Shores. In addition to his mother, Ramsay is survived by his brother, Jason, who reportedly resides out of state, and aunts, uncles, and cousins.